Emotional Eating: Which Wolf Are You Feeding?

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2013 | POSTED BY DR. GOULD



An old Cherokee is teaching her grandchild about life.

"A fight is going on inside me," she said to her granddaughter. "It's a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil: she is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."

"The other," she continued, "Is good: she is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

The granddaughter thought for a moment, then asked her grandmother, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee replied, "The one you feed."

For many emotional eaters, the first wolf is the one being fed. And one of the elements driving this is the feeling of inferiority. A sense of self-doubt. A sense of not being good enough. And this can apply to the many different roles we play in life ranging from mother, daughter, wife, friend, worker etc.

Where does this feeling of self-doubt come from? One of my former patients, let's call her Susan, stated it clearly:

"I have a lot of self-doubt...I've spent my life trying to satisfy what I thought were everyone's expectations of who I should be...I've always thought that was the only way I could be loved, and I've tried to please everyone, but it hasn't made me feel loved."

Susan's self-doubt stems from a belief that she isn't worth loving; that she'll have to reach high and far in order to be someone who people will be able to love.

And, of course, Susan has realized that despite all her efforts she still doesn't feel loved. And it's this very feeling that feeds her emotional eating habit, and draws her to (yet again) putting herself in a food trance through mindless overeating.

"For me, being in the food trance is being in a place where I don't have to feel anything but the pleasure of the food being consumed," she said. "I don't feel any negative emotions. I just feel the comfort of the food."

So, for a short while, Susan's self-doubt is quieted by the food trance. Her belief that she isn't worth loving is kept at bay, and the pleasure she could otherwise be receiving from people in her life who actually do love her, is instead substituted for half-an-hour alone with a box of cookies in front of the TV.

Tragically, when the food trance wears off, Susan is filled with disgust and self-loathing, which only further contributes to her layer of self-doubt and her belief that she isn't worth loving i.e. Susan continues feeding the first wolf.

Why someone feels they aren't worth loving is beyond the scope of this blog post. The beginnings of self-love and acceptance, however, start with two simple realizations here:

1) You are holding onto an irrational belief about yourself, and
2) You are seeking love from a source outside of yourself—one that can never provide it.

Susan realized that she had spent many years feeding the first wolf, which in turn, fed her emotional eating habit—and all of which had been due to the irrational belief that she wasn't worth loving.

And with this realization came her empowering statement, "You know what? I can't be who everyone wants me to be."

And with that, Susan set about discrediting her old, irrational belief, discovering along the way that, yes, she was indeed loved by those around her, but perhaps even more importantly still, that she was deserving of her own love.

Susan chose to feed the second wolf.

Yes, the first wolf would still skulk around at times, growling its demands to be fed. But its dominance in Susan's life only diminished as her focus and nurturing remained on the second wolf.

The freedom to choose, regardless of how difficult, is a wonderful power that sits within all of us...

What a terrible power that would be to waste.